


Brightness Burns

by graceandfire



Series: Brightness Burns [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:22:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graceandfire/pseuds/graceandfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Started with the premise, there is no such thing as an evil McCoy, no matter the universe.  And it went from there.</p><p>******************</p><p>Leonard doesn’t expect Kirk to say yes when he demands to tie him up.  That’s mostly why he asks.  To get some proof that this Kirk isn’t as open as he seems.  As trusting as he seems.  That he isn’t crazy enough to trust him.  It’s almost the same reason Leonard leans in for that first savage kiss...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brightness Burns

**Author's Note:**

> This was really the first fic I wrote in Star Trek and one of my first real forays into angst since I really wasn't comfortable with angst which, if you've read this series before, feel free to proceed with laughing at me.
> 
> Please note, there are references to non-con.

Leonard doesn’t expect Kirk to say yes when he demands to tie him up. That’s mostly why he asks. To get some proof that this Kirk isn’t as open as he seems. As trusting as he seems. That he isn’t crazy enough to trust him. It’s almost the same reason Leonard leans in for that first savage kiss, the initial startled reaction in Kirk’s eyes telling him that whatever the relationship between Kirk and the McCoy of this reality, it doesn’t include fucking. But Kirk—Jim—barely pauses before he’s kissing back with enthusiasm; just like he doesn’t pause at the sight of the restraints but just quirks an eyebrow and offers his hands as Leonard watches him with challenge in his eyes. And now Leonard looks down at the man spread out beneath him—all warm brown skin and impressive lean muscle—and feels the urge to do violence war with the urge to sink in and be as close to Jim as humanly possible. 

 

He compromises by threading fingers through thick honey shaded hair and tightening, yanking Jim’s head to the side and bending forward to plant a bite that’s two shades past painful where Jim’s neck and shoulder join. Jim just tenses, uncharacteristically quiet, breath hissing out but otherwise not fighting. Of course, his arms are restrained above his head but that wouldn’t stop any damn Kirk in any damn universe from trying to fight if he felt the need. Of that Leonard is sure. No, instead Jim makes an encouraging noise and sort of…shimmies underneath him, the movement shooting straight to Leonard’s dick as he resists the urge to bite down harder.

 

Sometimes he wonders if he resents the James Tiberius Kirk of this universe more than he does his own. For saving him. For showing him that hell exists and it’s apparently located in Leonard’s home reality. For showing him that this reality exists side by side, shining so bright it burns, searing the dark corners of Leonard’s tired and worn out psyche. But then again conflicting emotions are nothing new when it comes to any goddamn Kirk in any goddamn universe. Leonard’s had to work hard enough to hate his own.

 

His thoughts flash back to the James Tiberius Kirk of his own reality. His Kirk was not a simple man. And people who underestimated the too pretty face and the surface charm—figuring that Kirk’s meteoric rise to the top was by means of family connections and fucking his way up the ladder—soon found themselves crushed and broken beneath the man’s ruthless genius. His Kirk had been mesmerizing in his charisma, exuding sensual menace even at rest. A mirror reflection to this Jim Kirk tied up beneath him, this beaming—friendly as a goddamn Labrador—Jim who has the same shining charm as his counterpart but brighter, the sex appeal sunny as a summer picnic day. Leonard keeps searching for darkness. Keeps deliberately provoking and then waiting for judgment to come down. Instead this Jim, this kid, keeps giving him patient, stubborn kindness that makes Leonard want to roar his frustration.

 

The never distant anger bubbles up again and Leonard sits back, reaching down with a broad hand that he curves around Jim’s throat, tightening enough for the younger man to feel the threat of it. Instead of a predictable, expected, wanted reaction he gets a self-deprecating smirk that invites Leonard to laugh along. 

 

“Why do they always go for the throat?” Jim asks, eyes holding genuine amusement. This kid is fucking insane.

 

“I’m not him, y’know,” Leonard growls down at Jim’s unworried face. “I’m not your pet Bones. I could snap your fucking neck. You let me tie you up, you stupid fuck.” He’s indignant at being trusted. How dare Jim. 

 

“I know you’re not Bones—not this reality’s Bones,” Kirk says calmly, eyes not showing even a hint of nerves at the thought of being at Leonard’s mercy; every look of trust and offered friendship a dagger flaying away at Leonard’s tired, worn down soul. 

“But you’re Leonard Horatio McCoy and you’re a good man. You’re my friend.” Jim huffs out the words with an almost frustrated shrug.

 

Leonard’s hand tightens around Kirk’s throat, more from exasperation now than anger. “Do you know what he did to me in my universe?” Leonard’s voice is rough with warring emotions. “You don’t think I’ll take a little revenge on his doppelganger given the chance? You think we’ll just fuck and become best buddies?” His rage is irrational he knows. Hell, he was the one to start this.

 

It had been almost natural to reach out sexually to this Kirk. Leonard was trained to need it. His Kirk had loved to fuck him. Had loved to fuck with him. Had loved to fuck period, possessing an unrelenting sex drive, and he'd taken full advantage of his position. Not that he’d normally needed threats of any kind as people crawled to him for his looks, charisma and power. His Kirk’s usual pattern had been to screw someone until he was bored—which could take as little as half an hour—and then drop them for the next pair of bouncing tits or tight ass. But he’d always come back to Leonard, ruthlessly possessive in his claim. 

 

Maybe if he’d just bent over and dropped his pants the first time the new captain had come to inspect Sickbay and its personnel. If he'd looked down instead of growling when Kirk had done a lazy up and down inspection of him before smirking. Maybe if Leonard had just rolled over and bared his throat it would have been one short fuck and Kirk would have moved on.

 

But Leonard McCoy had always been too proud and too fucking stubborn for his own good and so, instead of offering his throat, he’d barely refrained from punching his new captain in his too pretty face--a good thing since it probably would have ended in his own very messy death. Instead, he’d snarled that he was a doctor not a fuck toy and ordered Kirk to leave unless he was here for a goddamn physical. 

 

It had been a stupid, stupid thing to do. Kirk could have had him tortured for it. Hell, Kirk could have ordered security to hold him down, taken his sweet time, and then passed what was left of Leonard around like a party favor. Instead, Kirk had flashed a wide grin and left Leonard behind, stomach churning, because he'd known it wasn't over. And the next day his top nurse had been cited for various work violations and screamed herself voiceless being ‘disciplined’ by security. 

 

The biggest flash of fear as he'd watched Security take Christine away was that it had only taken Kirk one brief meeting to know exactly where to apply the most effective pressure. Leonard had gone to Kirk’s quarters and he’d begged right on schedule, unable to suppress the rage and resentment that shouted silently from every line of his body. It had made Kirk’s smile go wider and he’d fucked Leonard facing him, eyes drinking in the hot anger in Leonard’s eyes and wire tensed muscles. And when Kirk had wrung the orgasm out of Leonard's resisting flesh, his face had lit up with something close to triumph. After that Kirk had come back to Leonard randomly. Sometimes once a week, sometimes more, rarely less. Leonard never said no, his lesson reinforced every time he looked at Christine’s scars, his resentment always seeming to egg Kirk on.

 

He'd wanted to hate Kirk. Hell, a lot of the time he had hated Kirk. But the man was too complicated to evoke only one simple, clean emotion like hatred. Kirk was a brilliant captain, an unaparalleled strategist, and he'd kept a lid on the bitter, bloody in-fighting for position that could take out the most talented and leave a crew crippled against outsiders. In their personal times together Kirk could come to him and be inexplicably gentle; just as often he was unrestrainedly cruel. 

 

And there had been Joanna. 

 

The one act of Kirk’s that Leonard had never been able to come to terms with. When Jocelyn, his stupid, stupidly ambitious ex-wife had pissed off the wrong people in her quest for power she had forfeited her life and all of her possessions to the Empire, including his precious baby girl Joanna. Leonard had been frantic, pulling in every favor, begging, making promises he had no way of keeping but he hadn’t been important enough to matter and he was left with the gut twisting horror of knowing that his beautiful precious child would disappear into the Empire’s ‘orphanages’ that were nothing more than slaving grounds and brothels.

 

Kirk had saved her. Leonard would have crawled for him. He’d have got down on his hands and knees and abased himself without hesitation; pride not even an issue. Kirk could have broken him with Joanna. Instead he’d never mentioned it. Leonard had found out about Kirk's intervention when he'd received a communication from earth, providing information on the private school that Joanna would be attending for the next five years to groom her for the Empire’s service in the fleet. Leonard knew better than to ask Kirk why. But, yeah, hate was too uncomplicated a word for what his Kirk evoked.

 

And then this James Tiberius Kirk had shown up; earnest and shining and noble and good. Leonard couldn’t let himself believe it and couldn’t stop himself from wanting to and couldn’t stop himself from caring, even though he knew that his universe would chew up anything as bright as this kid and spit him back out in fragmented pieces. But this James Kirk was apparently as crazy, as brilliant, as damn lucky as his own because somehow Jim had escaped his keepers, escaped and come to him like he thought Leonard was his destination. Like he’d thought Leonard would help him. 

 

And the damndest thing was that in the end he had. 

 

He'd helped and then watched from their hiding place as the crazy stranger with the familiar face contacted his own people to go back to the reality where he belonged. And then Leonard had felt the prick of a hypospray. Had met the apologetic, yet determined, gaze. And as the world had gone fuzzy the last thing Leonard heard was the crazy man saying softly to him. “I’ve got you, Bones.” 

 

And Leonard woke in a paradise that had no place for him.

 

Because he doesn’t belong in a world this good; this well intentioned. A world that already has its own Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy that does fit in. Who isn’t old and tired and worn out from trying to survive with his soul intact. Who—fuck him—looks at his doppelganger with more concern than the resentment he has to feel. 

 

Instinct tells Leonard he can rest here. An entire lifetime of experience insists this world is a lie. It's damn exhausting.

 

He looks down at Jim now and let’s his grip on the man’s throat go with a hmph, hands coming to rest on Jim’s broad chest. “Why did you bring me here?” he asks, not for the first time, a note of genuine bewilderment threading through his gruffness.

 

Jim’s face is uncharacteristically silent and still while his eyes are all too characteristically stubborn. “I couldn’t leave you there, Bones. Not you.”

 

The simple words and the truth behind them slice into Leonard and he’s scowling as he reaches up, unlocking the restraints that should have made Jim vulnerable. Freed, Jim carefully ghosts his hands up over Leonard’s back, his sides, evoking memories of another Kirk’s hands ghosting, teasing, always testing, always pushing. Leonard looks down at this Jim’s malice free eyes and sags into the embrace in defeat. 

 

“It would be simpler if I could just hate you,” he grumbles in a whisper. He’s not sure which Jim he’s talking to.


End file.
